A Peaceful Life
by SplatDragon
Summary: A heist gone wrong, and they'd sent her away. They hadn't meant it that way-she was Arthur's daughter, and so the Gang's granddaughter and niece in turn. But in her mind, they had sent her away. Her life was nice enough, she kept horses and dogs up in the snow, made the rare visit down to Nome; her family had forbidden her from going down to Valentine, or even to Old Man Hamish's
1. A light in the snow

Seppala squinted, raising his lantern higher as he attempted to see through the blowing winds and gusting snow. But the light barely reached passed his hand, and he could only see the tips of his wheel dogs' tails.

"Kirby! I think we're lost!"

It had been years since he had said that to Steele, and yet the scrappy alaskan husky still expected to be kicked. The last time he had said such a thing was during the Diphtheria Run, when Steele had gotten them so lost that they had nearly all frozen to death. And Star had had no reason to say it since; they had never had to run through such a heavy blizzard again.

But this blizzard had been unexpected, had blown through suddenly despite a bright, clear sky. They had had no warning, a slight snowfall turning suddenly into a total whiteout. Kirby was running blind, unable to see his paws when his legs were extended, and Kodiak, despite being a lead dog as well, could not see any farther than Ralph's nose.

"No, we're not!"

Kodi raised his voice, the sound nearly lost to the storm. The team attempted to dodge as a tree loomed suddenly into sight, burlap sacks of mail nearly being flung free as the sled was thrown into the air, their musher clinging desperately. "Whoa! Whoa!"

The team slowed to a trot, no longer daring to take such a fast pace for fear of colliding with something. They were entirely off the path—that was all they knew. If there was a cliff, they wouldn't see it until they were actively falling. But then there was another "Whoa!" and they stopped altogether, turning to look back at the vague shadow that was their musher.

The man raised his lantern high, frowning as he struggled to see. But yes—there. He was sure he had seen it, seen some sort of light some distance ahead. And so, carefully, he stepped off the runners of the sled, the dogs watching him in confusion.

"What's he doing?" Ralph wondered, shifting to take his weight off the paw with the hangnail. The man was stomping through the snow, walking close to, first, the sled, and then the team, for fear of being near a ledge and walking clear off of it.

"Idiot, how should I know?" grumbled Kirby, the dogs beginning to shift uneasily as the man's silhouette faded away.

Seppala trudged through the snow, shivering violently. He might as well have been naked for all the good his fur-lined coat did him, and he hoped that whoever he would find at the source of the lights—if anyone, and he prayed there was someone there—would be willing to put them up until the storm blew over. He feared not just for himself, but for the safety of his dogs. Well-suited for the cold they may be, but even they couldn't handle this frigid weather for any long period of time.

And if he were the sort of man to do so, he would have wept as a cabin came into sight; the storm was so heavy by that point that he only found it when he almost somersaulted over a hitching post. His eyebrows raised—in Nome hitching posts were few and far between, why would a cabin have one? But walking around it, he found a cabin, light pouring from the windows. And so he stomped up the stairs, lantern raised high, and brought up a gloved hand to knock on the door.

"Where did he go?" Star worried, whining as he strained against his harness, peering around the larger dogs. And the other mail dogs were beginning to tug as well, unable to see even his silhouette. What if something had happened to him? What if he had fallen down an incline, like he had years ago, or even a _cliff?_

"I'm sure he's fine," Kodi soothed, although he couldn't help but to be worried, as well. He braced his paws, shaking himself in an attempt to clear the snow from his thick russet fur, but it was almost instantly replaced by more. Oh, he was _freezing_, and from the sight of his teammates they were as well.

The dogs' ears perked at a loud rapping sound, instantly recognizing it as the sound of a fist on wood. What? Had he found somewhere to weather out the storm?

Seppala didn't have to wait long, as footsteps stomped towards the door, and a female voice called out, "Who's there?" He opened his mouth to answer, only for his voice to die in his throat as the door cracked open, finding himself staring so closely down the twin barrels of a shotgun that he could make out the rifling, throat tightening.

The door opened slightly wider, a pair of sea-glass colored eyes surrounded by sun-weathered skin peeking out behind the shotgun. The voice, sleep-rough, growled, "I ain't gonna ask you again. _Who's there?_"

Seppala shook himself, hands trembling as he stepped back, not wanting to blind himself or her with the lantern for fear of being shot. "My name is Leonhard Seppala. My dog team and I, we've gotten lost in the storm. Please, do you have somewhere we can bed down until the storm passes?"

The woman paused, before opening the door slightly further using the barrel of the gun, and he got the most awful feeling of being judged, found himself standing taller yet wanting to curl in on himself and make himself smaller for fear of being assumed of being aggressive and ending up shot, knowing that he had a gun in his own pocket for emergencies but also knowing that he wasn't a quick enough shot, that he wouldn't even have his hand on it before she had both slugs in him. "Yer dogs can sleep in the house, you sleep in the barn." She said in a no-nonsense sort of way.

To Seppala who, like any good musher, put his dogs before himself, that was just fine.


	2. A wall of heat

"Where're yer dogs at?" the woman asked him, sounding suspicious, peering into the whipping winds.

Seppala looked back over his shoulder, but his dogs were so far away that he couldn't even make out their silhouettes. "They're back that way, ma'am, near the trees." Her scowl deepened, but she nodded, stepping outside of the cabin and closing the door behind him, nodding into the storm.

"You twitch wrong, I shoot ya mister."

He gulped, knowing that she had the shotgun pointed at his back even though he'd turned his back to her though he'd turned to lead the way, and nodded, his voice shaky as he said, "Yes, ma'am."

So they trekked through the snow, and if she hadn't had a gun pointing at his vitals he would have found it funny how he had to go slower so the shorter woman, fierce as she was, could keep up in the knee deep snow, but at the moment he didn't find much of anything particularly funny.

"Yer dogs friendly?" she asked suddenly, making him startle, and he had a feeling she was amused.

"Yes ma'am."

"I've a couple of dogs in my house. They'll be safe?" and if you asked Seppala, anyone who cared about their dogs couldn't be too bad of a person, so he found himself at least somewhat more at ease.

"Yes ma'am, they're sled dogs. They've gotta be friendly if they're to compete." she hummed, and that was that.

"There he is!"

Star's yipping got the team back to their paws, squinting into the storm, making out the silhouette of Seppala and a smaller woman.

"Hey, who's that who's with him?" Ralph rumbled, tilting his head and lifting his weight off of his paw-with-the-bad-nail, and the rest of the team shifted uneasily; why was someone all the way out here?

"Here they are, ma'am," their musher said, and the woman nodded, the muzzle of her (was that a _gun?!_) dropping to the ground.

"Alright, let's get 'em back, then." she drawled, twitching her chin their way. Seppala nodded, and moved to stand next to Kodi, whistling sharply and commanding

"Heel, Kodi," and, despite his misgivings, Kodi began to walk at his musher's heel, the rest of his team following suit.

"Kodi, she has a _gun_," Star hissed, tripping over himself as he stared at the woman that led the way.

"I know," Kodi said, raising his head and trying to add that he wasn't as alarmed as the other dog, "But Seppala knows what he's doing, we have to trust him."

And he was their musher, and so they did.

They trudged through the snow for seemingly ages, although it couldn't have been far—their paws were sore, and their muscles burned, exhaustion trying to pull them to the ground. Finally, though, they caught the light of a cabin, and perked up—surely there'd be a barn, or a kennel, or something for them to rest in?

"Once yer dogs are settled in I'll show ya where yer sleepin'," the woman announced, looking back at Seppala. He nodded, and moved to untangle the dogs from their harnesses, "What's their names, mister?"

Seppala frowned, fumbling to remove the harness from snow-covered fur with fumbling fingers, but answered, "This is Kodi," and then, as he unlatched him, "Kirby," he unlatched the Siberian Husky, "Ralph," the Malamute, "Dusty," the Husky, "and Star."

The woman nodded, watching the dogs remain where they'd been unlatched, shivering and miserable, frowned, then told Seppala "Wait here for a moment," and vanished inside.

When she returned, some two minutes later, she was empty handed. Without the shotgun, or anything else to show what she'd done. "Alrigh', let's get those poor beasts inside."

"Heel," Seppala commanded as she held the door open, and the dogs were more than happy to trudge inside, stopping in front of the door long enough to shake themselves, splattering the musher and woman with snow before walking into the cabin, being hit immediately with a wall of heat.

"Oh, that's nice!" Ralph grunted, before being shoved out of the way by Dusty, "Let me in!"

The cabin wasn't anything fancy. A plain kitchen in one corner, a fire-place blazing in front of a bear-skin rug, rugs of other animal-skins scattered across the room. A stag-head sat on the wall, a few pictures scattered along with it. The air smelled of dogs, and they could hear a few behind one of the doors, but they were all far more interested in the fireplace.

Almost as one, the team bolted for the fireplace, arguing as they threw themselves into a pile in front of it, finally ending up in a heap of fur and flesh and wet-dog-smell, basking as the heat set itself into their bones and chased away the chill of the storm.

Seppala shook his head as he watched his dogs, glad to see them safe and out of the blizzard, before turning to the woman. "Thank you again, ma'am."

"Lark," the woman offered her hand.

"Excuse me?" he frowned, but accepted her hand anyways.

"Name's Lark. Lark Morgan."


End file.
